Our Yanks

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Everybody knows everybody in King’s Thorpe. He’s a big wheel round here.’

  ‘Well, we had to pay big compensation.’

  ‘He’d make sure of it. He’s that sort of man. Some people are probably doing very well out of the war.’

  ‘Same thing back in the US too, I guess. War’s a great money-spinner for the lucky ones, while the other guys pay up with their lives.’ He drew on the cigarette again and flicked the ash out of the window. ‘I’ve got three days’ leave coming up in a while. Not sure when yet. There’s a hell of a lot on right now. When it comes round, I thought maybe I’d go down to London. I’d like you to come with me, Erika, if you would. What do you say?’

  ‘I say yes.’

  No shocked protest. No maidenly blushes. Just a plain and simple yes. No wonder he felt as he did about her.

  ‘I don’t know where we’d stay. Some hotel . . .’

  ‘I still have the flat in Kensington. We could stay there, if you like.’

  He nodded. ‘That would be great. If it’s OK with you.’

  ‘It is.’

  He looked at his wristwatch and started up the engine. ‘Think you can navigate us back to King’s Thorpe?’

  ‘We’ll have to steer by the sun.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, I guess I can manage that.’

  Ten

  Chester leant his bike against the bakehouse wall. As he opened the door the sheep’s bell jangled and Sally looked up from serving a customer. She went on picking out buns from one of the trays and then a loaf of bread from the stack on the other table, putting them all in the woman’s basket. He waited while she took the money and gave the change and then he held the door open for the woman, who thanked him with a smile. Sally wasn’t smiling but he thought she looked prettier than ever.

  ‘Didn’t you get my letter, Chester?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Tom delivered it.’

  ‘I told you I didn’t want to see you any more.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I meant what I said.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that for a good long while. In the end, I figured I’d come down here, just the same. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me. What’s gone so wrong, Sally? We got along just fine.’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘You know we did.’ He looked hard at her, searching her face. ‘So what’s suddenly changed things?’

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes; turned her back on him and started moving the bread around even though it didn’t need it. ‘I decided I didn’t want to see you any more, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it because I wanted us to get married? Because I won’t bother you with that again, if that’s what the trouble is.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’

  ‘Something else I’ve done? Or maybe said?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t want to go out with you again.’

  He said slowly, ‘Well, I guess that’s that, then.’

  She turned round and he could see she was real upset: it looked like there were some tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Chester. Very sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. But I can’t help it.’

  ‘That’s OK. It happens.’ He made himself smile at her. ‘Don’t worry about it. Any objection to me still coming in sometimes to buy your rock cakes? Wouldn’t want to have to do without those as well.’

  ‘Please don’t. I’d much sooner you didn’t.’

  ‘Guess I’d better take some now, then. My last chance.’

  ‘How many would you like?’

  ‘I’ll have a dozen. Share ’em around.’

  ‘Have you got a bag?’

  ‘Shucks, I forgot.’

  ‘I’ll go and find one.’

  While she was gone her father put his head round the door for a moment and gave him a black look. The guy sure hadn’t gotten any friendlier. When Sally came back, he said, ‘Just as well I never said anything to your dad.’

  ‘You never would, would you Chester? Swear you won’t.’

  ‘No need now, is there?’ He paid for the rock cakes and pocketed the change. He tried to think of an excuse to linger, just to be able to see her for longer and talk some more, but the sheep’s bell went and another customer came in. He biked slowly back with the paper bag of rock buns resting on the handlebars. At the base he gave them all away to the other guys; he sure didn’t feel like eating.

  ‘Gin,’ Ben fanned out his hand. ‘Tough luck, Ed. That makes three pounds you owe me.’

  ‘Bloodsucker.’ Ed tossed down his cards and passed the notes over.

  ‘Your mind wasn’t on the game, pal. You still thinking about that schoolteacher? That’s mighty bad. I told you, you don’t want to think about anything but surviving this tour and winning at cards. Ain’t that right, Jessie?’ He leant to pat the Scottie dog lying beside him. ‘Just as well we’re nearly through.’

  ‘I never think about anything but flying when we’re up, you know that, Ben.’

  ‘Sure hope not. No girl’s worth it. Drop her, Ed. Or put her on ice till the lousy war’s over.’

  ‘I’d already figured that out for myself – not from the same angle, though.’

  ‘Whatever way, it adds up the same.’ Ben wagged a finger. ‘Serious is prohibited. Always kiss the girls goodbye. Heck, there’ll be plenty more back home. Gorgeous American girls, not these English ones: they’re either loose as a goose or tight as my maiden aunt. Soon as you get back Stateside you’ll forget Miss like she never existed. Boy, I can’t wait to get back to California. Sun, golden gals, steaks, no Brussels sprouts . . .’

  ‘I’m putting in to do another tour.’

  ‘What? Did I hear right? You gone crazy, or something?’

  ‘No. I mean it. I don’t figure on spending the rest of the war teaching other guys to fly.’

  ‘I don’t buy it. Got a death wish, Ed? Another three hundred hours of it? Another sixty-two missions – maybe more? And those sons of bitches could send you anywhere. Aw, come on . . . you’re kidding.’

  ‘I don’t want to quit yet.’

  ‘You’re loony. Don’t push your luck, Ed. You’ve done your share. There’s plenty more where we came from.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve thought about that.’ He chewed on his gum. ‘But we’ve got the experience, Ben. We’ve learned the hard way. Been through the fire. I figure we’re a hell of a lot more useful now than when we started. Half the guys never hit a darned thing. You know that. It’s only a few do the real work. Like us.’ He tapped the ribbon on his chest. ‘That’s why we got given these, right? The Germans aren’t going to give up without a real hard fight and I want to be in there at the finish. See it all the way through.’

  Ben scooped up the cards and shuffled them fast. ‘I don’t want to hear any more – you’ll have me in tears. You’re crazy.’ He slapped the pack down on the table. ‘Your deal, pal.’

  ‘Haven’t they noticed yet, Sal?’

  ‘Dad hasn’t. I’m not sure about Mum. She keeps giving me funny looks.’

  Doris put her head on one side. ‘You can’t really tell. Not in that frock.’

  ‘I’ve let it out, see. And when I’ve got my apron on it doesn’t show at all.’

  ‘But they’ll notice in the end, Sal.’

  ‘I know that, Doris. You don’t have to keep on telling me.’

  ‘What about the woman in Peterborough?’

  ‘When I went there, she’d gone. Got arrested by the police, or something.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad she didn’t do anything to you. You might have got poisoned. How about that old witch in the forest? The one that did the spell for the tiler’s wife? If she can do one to get a baby, she might be able to do another to take one away.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Doris. It wasn’t a spell, it was some Yank. Everyone knew that except him.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know it. Fancy that. I’d never have thought it of her.’

  ‘Lucky for her the tiler didn’t either.’

  ‘H
ave you tried jumping off things any more?’

  ‘It doesn’t work. For God’s sake, don’t smoke, Doris, it makes me sick.’ Sally went to the window, stuck her head out and took some breaths of fresh air.

  ‘Sorry.’ Doris stubbed the cigarette out quickly. ‘What does it feel like? Having a baby growing inside you?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Sorry. I was just wondering. Well, what’ll you do now?’

  ‘Dunno. There’s a place I heard about for unmarried mothers. I might go there – just to have it. Then I’m going to give it away – soon as I can. And I’ll go to London, or somewhere.’

  ‘All on your own? That’d be horrible.’

  ‘No, it won’t. I’ll be all right. Dad wouldn’t have me at home, anyway. He’s going to go mad when he finds out. Throw me out on my ear.’

  ‘Poor Sal . . . Have you thought of marrying Chester? You could, now you’re sixteen, if your dad gives permission. And he’d do that, wouldn’t he, to make things proper. So the baby wasn’t illegitimate.’

  She turned on Doris. ‘I’ve told you. I’m not marrying Chester. I don’t want a husband and I don’t want a baby. Not yet. I don’t want to be tied down for the rest of my life, like you see happen to girls in the village. All worn out like old hags before they’re thirty. I don’t want that. I want a life of my own first. You don’t understand, do you?’

  ‘Not really. I’d like to get married, soon as I can.’

  ‘We’re different, Doris, that’s all.’ Sally took some more breaths of fresh air. She felt all dizzy, and ever so tired.

  ‘Have you seen Chester lately?’

  ‘I told him to stay away.’

  ‘I feel sorry for him.’

  ‘Be quiet, Doris. All you do is make me feel worse. Can’t you think of something helpful to say?’

  She breathed in deeply again and the baby moved with a sudden twitching. She loathed the thought of it growing inside her. Oh, God, she thought despairingly, what am I going to do?

  Brigadier Mapperton poured himself a brandy. It was almost the last of the last bottle of Hennessy from the cellar, but he needed it. Anthea had left an hour earlier, the King’s Thorpe’s taxi bearing her and her suitcase to the railway station, and Cicily had gone to bed early with one of her trashy novels. For once, he couldn’t blame her.

  Anthea’s leave, it had to be said, had been more a pain than a pleasure. Always more bossy than was attractive in a woman – in his view – she had grown even more so since her recent promotion and, to his considerable irritation and annoyance, she had spent the time trying to reorganize them as though they were a bunch of bloody WRNS. They’d been bombarded with a whole lot of damfool suggestions and advice, none of which they had asked for: how to run the house, the garden, their lives. And she had talked about John. He and Cicily had had a tacit understanding between them ever since the news of his capture that it was better not to speak of him. Not even to mention his name, let alone discuss what might have happened or be happening to him. In his firm view, it was the only sane way to deal with the situation, unless they wanted to go demented. Or, at least, it was their way. Anthea had had the nerve to tell them that they should face up to it and talk about John all the time; that it would do them good. Cicily had begun to weep and he had lost his temper and shouted at his daughter to mind her own damned business. Inexcusable of her to go upsetting her mother like that. He was damned if he’d allow it.

  He tossed back a good quarter of the glassful. The fact was that Anthea and John had nothing in common. Different sex, different characters, different looks, different age, different everything. Poles apart. She reminded him unfortunately sometimes of his late mother-in-law, who had had the sensitivity of an ox. He wondered whether, if it had been his daughter who had been captured by the Japs, he would have felt such terrible anguish; and realized, guiltily, that he would not. He might not speak of John but his only son had occupied his mind every day of every week of every month since he had gone away.

  Lately, he had allowed himself a small ray of hope – though he had said nothing to Cicily. He kept a large map of the world pinned to the wall in his study – a sanctum that she never entered – and periodically marked up the Allies’ setbacks or progress with pencilled jottings and appropriate paper flags. He had followed all campaigns in Europe, North Africa and the Far East, but it was the Americans’ grim and bloody struggle in the Pacific that concerned him the most. Every newspaper and wireless report of military activity in that theatre of war was meticulously entered onto his map and its significance considered. It had taken almost a month for the American marines to capture the island of Saipan, a key base in Japan’s defence system, and nine days to take Tinian. Guam had been retaken around the same time. The Stars and Stripes was making slow but vital progress across the Pacific and he pinned his hopes with each flag. It was clear to him, studying his wall map, that the capture of Saipan had brought the Japanese home islands, only fifteen hundred miles away, within the range of the heavy bombers and long-range escort fighters of the American Air Force for the first time. There was a long way to go but the tide was at last beginning to turn. The eventual defeat of Japan would mean John’s release. If he was still alive.

  He carried his glass through into his study and stood studying the wall map yet again and the wide scatter of islands throughout the Pacific Ocean. Fighting the Japs entrenched in those places must have been hellishly tricky. You knew where you were with the Huns but those oriental chaps didn’t play by the rules: they had their own peculiarly nasty ones. They fought to the death and life was cheap. Cruel, inhuman, barbaric, were adjectives that came to mind. He went on staring at the map for a long while before he drained the last of the brandy. It helped to dull his mental pain, in the same way as it could dull the pain of a nagging tooth.

  Friday nights were bath nights. Once a week Mum took down the tin bath from its hook on the washhouse wall and ladled steaming hot water from the copper into it before she poured on cold water from a bucket to cool it down. She bathed Nell first, as usual, then scrubbed Alfie who always made a big fuss. By the time it came to Tom’s turn to bath himself the water was tepid and looked like cabbage soup.

  He soaped himself all over with the Yank soap. It smelled a bit cissy to him compared with the carbolic, but if Ed and all the others used it, then it must be all right. As he scrubbed away at his fingernails he thought about whose eggs he’d pinch next. What with Dad being home last week and going down to the Black Bull every evening, the Oxo tin was almost empty by the time he’d gone off again. Something had to be done about it for Mum. He went through the possibilities and thought of Mr Hobbs. He only ever took them from people who had plenty of eggs and wouldn’t miss a few, and Mr Hobbs had more than anybody. He’d never been there before because the farmer kept fierce dogs and let them roam about the yard at night, and because he was almost as scared of him as of his dogs. But he knew there were a lot of hens and there’d be a lot of eggs.

  He got out and dried himself on the towel that was sopping wet after Nell and Alfie and put his clothes back on. Then he dragged the bath outside and tipped the soupy water away. Mum was doing the ironing on the kitchen table, on top of a blanket and sheet. There was a big pile of Yanks’ shirts waiting to be done on the chair beside her. The room was hot with the heat from the range and from the irons, and flies were buzzing about. The flypaper hanging from the oil lamp was all black with the dead ones stuck to it, some of them still alive and struggling by the legs.

  ‘Time you were in bed, Tom. And be quiet about it so you don’t wake Nell.’

  He hated going to bed while it was still daylight. ‘Can’t I stay up a bit? It’s the holidays.’

  ‘No, you can’t. It’s past nine. And it’s potato-picking tomorrow, don’t forget.’

  That was another thing he hated: being made to go and pick up potatoes from the fields all day long. Sixpence a sack was all the farmer paid and a shilling for the wom
en. It took Alfie the whole day to pick up enough to fill one sack, not that he tried very hard. ‘Do we have to, Mum?’

  ‘The money’ll be handy, Tom. We’re very short. And it’ll keep you both out of mischief.’ Mum took another hot iron from the range and spat on it so it sizzled. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. ‘Off you go now.’

  She was always tired, it seemed to him. Always working at something because Dad never sent enough money when he was away. He’d long ago made up his mind that when he was grown-up he’d earn lots so’s she didn’t have to go on working any more.

  He climbed the stairs slowly. Nell had gone to sleep in her cot in Mum’s room but Alfie was still wide awake, wriggling around in the bed. He took off his outer clothes and his boots and socks and climbed in beside his brother. If Mum needed the money that badly he’d have to get the eggs tonight. He’d hide them and sell them to the Yanks soon as he got the chance, the day after tomorrow. And he’d tell Mum they’d paid him for running errands, the same as he always did. With any luck, Alfie would go to sleep by the time it was dark and he’d be able to slip off without him knowing. He always made sure Alfie didn’t know when he went out at night because he’d want to come too, which he couldn’t, and he might give him away by mistake because he could never keep quiet about things.

  ‘What’s Mum doing, Tom?’

  The thing to do was not to talk to him, or he’d go on for hours. ‘Still ironing.’

  ‘The Yanks’ things?’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘Ed hasn’t been down himself lately, has he?’

  ‘They’ve been busy. Him and Ben, and the pilots. They’ve been shooting up German trains and engines, and stuff. That’s what they told me in the radio shack.’

  ‘They are lucky. I’d like to do that. Shoot up trains.’ Alfie stuck both arms out and made what he thought was a machine-gun noise: ‘Da-da-da-da-da-da.’

  Tom rolled his eyes. ‘They don’t shoot like that or they couldn’t fly the plane, could they? They’ve got a gun button on the top of the control stick so they don’t have to let go.’